Bridge for u3as

If you’re missing your regular Face-to-face Bridge club meetings, you’re not alone! Like you, Great Yarmouth U3A Bridge Club wanted to keep playing during these strange and difficult times, so they decided to go online.

Back in July during the first lockdown, Steve & Tony from Great Yarmouth U3A arranged to join forces with Bridge players from Palmers Green and Southgate U3A to play online, using Bridge Club Live (BCL) as a platform.

This hybrid Bridge club had been such a great success that they decided to invite other players from other U3As using an entry in Third Age Matters.  More U3A Bridge Groups joined resulting in a trebling of weekly playing sessions and increasing interest.

Bridge Club Live’s main function is to provide a service for players from around the world to play with real people (not robots!) at whatever level they choose.

Where it’s great for U3A clubs, though, is that it also provides a space for them to meet each other and play in a friendly and comfortable atmosphere.

BCL also has an audio/visual facility whereby members can chat to each other while actually playing, which brings back some of the social aspect of Bridge that we all miss.

The club also offers new players the added buffer of BCL’s Coaching Corner where they can practise and ask question before playing in other ‘rooms’.

U3a members are on hand to offer taster sessions and mentoring as well as to direct newcomers to social Bridge and the weekly ‘friendly duplicate’ sessions that are available.

The cost of playing online is hardly any different to our normal ‘table money’ except that whereas we would normally pay £2 – £3 for a (typical) 2-hour session, for the same money you can play 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

This includes unlimited play in all rooms and competitions as well as the ‘Face-to-face’ club session.

So why not come and join like-minded U3A Bridge lovers? 

By playing Bridge online we can keep our love of the game alive while waiting for the day when we can actually sit at a table with our friends, Face-to-face.

For further information email Bridgeclubs@eastnorfolk.org or ‘phone 07749 888830 (voicemail)

or go online at https://www.bridgewebs.com/cgi-bin/bwoo/bw.cgi?club=eastnorfolk&pid=display_page5